October 25, 2007

American’s Self-Absorbtion or Why We Are Going To Attack Iran

Hello, and welcome to Cassandra’s hell. If you are reading this, rest assured, I’m probably not talking about you. I’m talking to you about the 41% of Americans who can’t name one GOP hopeful. Look, I haven’t watched a single debate, only pieces of them posted on various websites. I hardly watch any television. That said, I can name 7 Democratic candidates (Biden, Dodd, Gravel, Kucinich, Edwards, Obama and Clinton) and I know there is at least one other who I can’t name but would recognize (Richardson). I can name as many Republican candidates (Paul, Brownback, Huckabee, Thompson, McCain, Giuliani and Romney) and I know there is at least one other that I can’t name but would recognize (Tancredo). I mean, how do you go anywhere on the Internet without meeting at least one rabid Ron Paul supporter? Do they not know McCain is running again? The guy from Law and Order is running? America’s mayor, Mr.-9/11-himself-and-will-remind-you-every-other-breath Giuliani is running? The mormon even?

There is no excuse for this. What it means is that there is about 40% of Americans are flat-out not paying attention to anything outside of maybe their own lives. These 40% of Americans don’t know what the President means by diplomacy. The President’s notion of diplomacy is the same as his idea of bi-partisanship. The common theme is the President says: give me what I want or else. Democrats typically give him what he wants. Iran, quite simply, will not. So they will get the else which in this case is an air-strike. He will paint himself into that corner, so it will either be attacking Iran or a loss in credibility. This President will choose to attack. The same way he did with Iraq. Arguing with the President about it is pointless. It will be just like trying to convince him to withdrawal from Iraq. He’ll ask: why are you against freedom? For Iran: you don’t want them to develop nuclear capabilities? You don’t want World War 3 do you? The irony is, this President will start World War 3 for the sake of preventing it. You will never hear this directly from the mainstream media. They’ll just report that the President said that any planned strike on Iran is a “baseless rumor.” It is not a baseless rumor, there is lots of evidencefor it. But it requires people to have been paying attention for the past six years. And that my friends, is exactly what this poll proves is not happening.

The Democrats are feckless to stop this. Their approach to hold an investigation but it doesn’t matter what the investigation finds. The administration is never candid. And in some instances won’t even answer the subpoena to testify. What is the point! It doesn’t matter what these investigations find, because any evidence or obstruction or wrong-doing never results in a conviction from the Democrats to actually hold the administration accountable. They only have one constitutional recourse that means anything, and that is impeachment. Something that Democratic leadership says is “off the table.”

If conflict with Iran is to be avoided at this point, three things need to happen.

The power of the purse is the only leverage the narrowly controlled Democratic Congress has, they must not be afraid to use it. Democrats will take a lot of heat in the beltway for this. But, they need to take a stand. An attack on Iran could cause a broader conflict that would spiral out of control, such as Turkey invading the northern part of Iraq. However, in order for the Democrats to actually do what is right, it might require waking 40% of Americans who haven’t been paying attention up.